


Whisperspeak

by iniquiticity



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Benjamin Tallmadge's Lead-Weighted Angst, Blood, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Men at Baffling Odds With Their Feelings, Non-Consenual Consumption of Alcohol (Medical), Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Guilt, Semi-Graphic Medical Process, Wound Descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 04:43:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7252543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He walks across the camp and back again, and his chest burns. He imagine this is what it's like to be shot. In fact, it is fantastically, exponentially, monstrously worse to be shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whisperspeak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nimravidae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/gifts).



> happy birthday, troy. you are an exceptional human being, wonderful company, a great friend, a brilliant mind, and i'm quite honored to have you as my friend. 
> 
> in other news, i'm the kind of friend who writes gunshot-wound angst for my friends' birthdays! so, that's another step into the abyss. also, you cannot have sex the same day a bullet is taken out of your gut. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. to solve this, i present: fanfiction.

The guards let Ben in without a word. He stands at attention, his hat in his hand, the ice-mud still clinging to his boots. At least, he thinks, he has decent boots, and his feet are frozen solid but at least they're dry. 

He takes his commander in - broad and strong and impassible like an iron gate. His eyes are hard, and his mouth is pressed together in a thin line as he scans through correspondence. Ben would do anything, he thinks, to get inside that head. To see those thoughts as they unfolded. To reach in and offer whatever bare comforts he had, if they existed. 

He could offer himself as comfort, because something is wrong with him. Something he refuses to name, because if he names it - if he names it he's a monster, a sin-devil, a failure in the Lord's eyes. If he doesn't name it, if he pretends it is nothing, then it becomes just another hunger which can't be satisfied with rations. It is a nothing without a name. All things are nothing without names. 

"Sir," he says. 

Washington looks up with only his eyes. His head remains bent over his letter, but his eyes flick up to Ben and take him in in a way that should be impossible. How can just stone eyes do this to him, make him fight the desire to tremble? 

"Major," Washington says, and waits. 

"I've received some new information from Culper," Ben says, all in one breath. He breathes in again. Washington's tent even smells different, less horseshit and blood and more like paper and the weight of the war. He takes two steps forward and puts the decoded letter on Washington's desk. 

Washington sits up more firmly in his chair and reaches with his characteristic delibrateness for the letter. He unfolds it. Ben watches his eyes flit from the beginning of the line to the end of the line, and then to the beginning of the next line, in silence. Ben resists the fidget which crawls at the back of his spine. He resists the urge to spout a thousand strategies that grow in the front of his mind. He says and does nothing, as much as he can. He will be as firm and as solid as Washington, or as close as he try. 

Washington folds the letter back up and sets it carefully on top of one of his piles. There's a huge moment, still and terrible, where his eyes remain on the paper. 

Then the side of his lip quirks up. It's almost a smile, and Ben's heart lifts with it. 

"This is very good, Major," Washington says, his eyes sweeping back to Ben. "Culper has done well for us again." 

"Yes, sir," he says, stiffly. 

Washington stands, and Ben looks up at him, trying his best to be unreadable. Ben's thoughts are sinful and terrible and traitorous, when they are not put to work thinking about something else. Ben's thoughts are mutinous like the army. 

Washington meets his eyes and Ben knows, without a doubt, that he is the most transparent creature to ever walk this earth. The cold wind is kept out of the tent by the heavy canvas, but he can still feel the freezing air when he inhales, can feel the chill clinging to him like moss. Washington's gaze is a new kind of cold, a soul-touching kind of cold. It might be better, he thinks, to strip down and run across the camp at nightfall, than be like this, and under this, and on the receiving end of this. 

"I shall rearrange our strategies based on this," Washington says. Ben nods, then feels ridiculous about it; agreeing with the general is his default state, and, more-so, is irrelevant. "Is there anything else?" 

"No, sir," Ben says, although in the back of his mind there is always something else. He has tasted the apple in his fantasies and cannot give back his knowledge. He cannot return to ignorance. He has felt the flesh of it crisp on his tongue, felt the sweet, cold juice run down his mouth. He has felt the give of it against his mouth. He has been tempted and judged and, oh, how he is wanting, because he is unworthy and undeserving, and inadequate. 

"Excellent," Washington says, in his gentle rumble. Washington sits back down at his desk and picks up where he left off at his previous letter. Ben knows he is dismissed and yet cannot pull himself completely away from his commander. He cannot avert his eyes from this sight, as plain and regular as it is. 

He tears himself from it, because he must. He leaves the tent. He walks across the camp and back again, and his chest burns. He imagine this is what it's like to be shot. 

  


***

  


In fact, it is fantastically, exponentially, monstrously worse to be shot. There is nothing worse than being shot. He has been beaten and bruised and fallen into an ice-cold river and shivered in the dirt, and it seems like a springtime walk in comparison to this. The weight in his chest, which he drags around with him like an anchor, is a fucking bouquet of flowers in comparison to actually being shot. 

There are hands all over him and the most exquisite agony he has ever felt. Liquid spills into his mouth, and he chokes it down, and any heat it might have created in his stomach is completely dwarfed by the unceasing agony of his existence. He wants to die. Please kill him. Please end him. Please don't let the general see him like this, wretched and horrible and pitiful. He doesn't want to be human, he doesn't want to be alive, he wants to be stone like Washington, he wants to have Washington so close, he wants to touch, he wants to feel, god, he wants to _feel_ \---

A piece of cloth is shoved into his mouth. It tastes like whiskey, and he chokes and gags and there is hell, and he is inside of it. 

  


***

  


His stomach sears at all hours. He no longer has to worrying about wanting to eat, because eating is torture, and using a latrine is even worse. The pain eats at him at every goddamn moment of the day, interfering with his thoughts, taking down his guard. Though the pain and whiskey and overwhelming sense of his own patheticness is good for something - it distracts him from thinking about how Washington hasn't seen him. It's the most embarrassing series of thoughts he's ever had. He, a mere major, a nobody, barely not a child - expecting General George Washington, commander in chief, leader of the effort, the very keystone of the war, the only thing pushing the army forward - to visit him. He can do nothing, and Washington can do nothing for him. All there is to be done is to wait and drink and beat himself up and hate his uselessness as his stomach melds itself back together. He used to think Arnold was a peculiar kind of wild, but he understands now. 

Caleb is always in and out, updating him, talking to Abe, talking to Washington (god, Caleb, and Washington, and sometimes he expects Caleb to go into Washington's tent and never come out), keeping him updated. Ben has nothing to do other than listen to Caleb's war reports and smuggling updates. 

  


***

  


What seems like ten years later, he is back in action. He is back in action and out of the loop in so many different ways and in so many different areas, he thinks that maybe he will never be back on track. He will never be the man Washington needs him to be again. He will never be informed. He will never be a spymaster, he will never -- 

He should be proud, should be relieved, that the Lord sent him this bullet to knock him down a few pegs, that being out of the loop will pull him out of the range of the sin his ruined heart desires. He thought that being pulled away from what he desired against the Lord’s wishes would wilt the weed that sticks to his soul like tar, but it lingers. It’s like a stench that he can’t wash off. It isn’t like being shot - oh, it’s not as terrible as being shot - but now that he can think without his wound throbbing like a punch to his stomach, it’s just as strong, a fist eternally tightened around his heart. 

One day Washington calls for him. He hasn’t seen the man in what seems like forever. He is left with only sewn-together memories of Washington’s face, and daydreams of his low voice, and his dark, unforgivable thoughts. He looks at himself in his mirror and frowns at his face. He’s haggard, thinner than ever, miserable. His wound aches. He takes a breath and pushes the pain to the side. 

Washington is just as he always has been. Washington is standing, still and stonelike, in his tent. Ben’s heart feels like an anchor, and all at once his rebellious thoughts stir, like the calm before the chaos of a mutiny. It’s humid like before a storm in his head. He takes a breath. 

“Major,” Washington says, softly, and steps close to him, “How is the wound?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing, sir,” Ben says, even though it aches. He’s glad it aches, because he wasn’t prepared for his demons to grow and appear so viciously, to coalesce out of the wretched seams of his soul and beat him in the back of his mind. He wasn’t prepared for this response to Washington’s voice, low and confident and considerate. He wasn’t prepared to even look at the general, standing there, infinitely impressive. 

“Good,” Washington says. 

“I’m able to resume my previous duties as soon as you'd like,” Ben says. He isn’t prepared for Washington being so close, after they’ve been so far. He isn’t prepared for the smell of the man - linen and leather and horse and some cologne, musky. He isn’t prepared for Washington’s hand to set itself comfortably on his shoulder - broad and warm, comfortable even in the early spring. He swallows. His thoughts whip like devils through his mind. His heart thuds in his chest. His wound roars. 

“Major,” Washington says, takes his hand from Ben’s shoulder, and sits back down at his desk. “Sit.” 

Ben sits, carefully. It’s a blessing. His legs are weak. His mind is a blur, drunk like a desert nomad finding an oasis. 

“You’ve recovered quite well,” Washington says, “I think you should be more than capable of travelling with your appropriate station when we move camp.” 

“Yes, sir,” Ben says, automatically, because he has no thoughts left. Washington’s hand has left a scar through his coat. 

Washington watches him closely. Ben no longer knows if Washington has always watched him that closely; he no longer knows anything. He is devoid of thoughts. The only thing remaining in his head are his terrible urges, and the shameful pulse of desire, and his fever wound-dreams, where Washington touched him, just like that, and so much more. 

  


***

  


It is hell to move camp, and Ben’s wound aches every second. But Washington settles his men into a gorgeous manor, and master suite his office. It’s luxurious and private. Ben delivers his reports in the dressing room attached to the bedroom, and forces himself to forget the darkness that aches. His wound heals, slow. Breathing stops hurting. Eating stops hurting. Only battle, and all the furious twisting, makes him ache. 

One day Caleb wakes him in the middle of the night. Ben startles, and pain jolts through him. 

“Washington needs this,” Caleb hisses, and pushes a letter into his hand. 

He should dress. He does so furiously, so much that his stomach is screaming as he twists his jacket on, as he ties a hurried knot in his neckcloth. He shouldn’t run but he does, to the manor. Washington’s candle is still burning in his window. 

“Sir,” Ben says, panting, his wound throbbing. Washington looks up at him, unimpressed, and takes the letter from his hand, unfolding it. 

He reads. 

He reads and Ben stares, locking his knees against the pain. He’s thinking about what it was like to be shot, to lay there bloody, to have been dragged somewhere. To wake up and go under, to have hands all over, to be begging to see the general and not to see him --

Washington folds the letter and puts it on his desk.

“Lay down, Benjamin,” Washington says, gesturing to a long couch across the wall, “Take off your jacket.”

“What, sir?” Ben says, weakly. Even his locked knees shake. He has imagined those words in the night too many times. This cannot be reality, not with this pain, and Washington looking at him like that, and saying those words. 

“The couch, Major,” Washington repeats, and gestures. “And take off your jacket.” 

Ben barely resists the stagger. He lays on the couch and stares at the ceiling, and thinks about fantasies and being shot and how terrible he is, how awry his mind has gone, and what hell might feel like. 

Washington pulls a chair over. Those firm hands are pulling his arm out of his jacket on his bad side. Those firm hands are at the button of his waistcoat. Those hands are undoing his undershirt. 

Washington’s hands come away with blood. 

“You’ve opened your stitches, Major,” Washington rumbles. Ben hisses as Washington’s fingers investigate the wound in the candlelight. “Wait. I shall fetch some sutures.” 

“Sir--” Ben begins, and everything about him is burning with shame and desire and horror, and there is no way that he can hide any of those things. But Washington seems focused on ignoring his evident desire and his tears and his shame and his general failure. 

“You could hurt yourself further, if you speak. Pressure, instead.” Washington pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and places it in Ben’s hand, then puts Ben’s hand over his wound. Washington’s touch is firm and giving all at once, and Ben is forced to obey. “Now. Remain, while I shall fetch some sutures.” 

Ben remembers lying on that table, his thoughts screaming through his head, the bullet in his stomach, and the tongs, and the pain - god, the pain. He remembers a blur of bodies and pale fingers and pure lightning arcing across his body. He remembers screaming and hands and choking down whiskey, and it’s too close to his this, only now he knows Washington is here, watching him -- seeing him, barely a man, a fragment of a creature. 

“Drink this,” says Washington’s voice, from outside his haze. Washington tips a glass to his lips and Ben swallows obediently, because he can do nothing else, with Washington’s voice. He can only obey, and try to be more, and fail. He can only try to stop wanting and as a result want more. It’s bourbon, smooth and warm. There are fingers at his wound, and the stab of a needle, and wire. 

He’s never been so humiliated in his life. How could Washington see him like this? How could he allow Washington to see him like this? Washington will never - could never - well, he could never have --- _desires_ \-- not that he would -- 

“Major,” Washington says. The pain stays, but the fingers, and the pressure, and the needle all go. Ben’s too deep in his own misery, and his failure, and his illness, and his sick desires, and that touch-- 

“ _Major_ ,” Washington says more firmly. 

“Sir,” Ben chokes out. 

“It should be advised, the next time you are injured, that you think less loudly,” Washington says. Ben gasps, and perhaps he might have jerked and torn his stitches again, if Washington was not so firmly holding him down, and he did not enjoy it so much. 

\-- If Washington could hear his thoughts _now_ , then -- 

“Sir, I beg for the mercy of to be shot, and not hanged,” he gasps. 

“That would be a terrible waste of an officer,” Washington replies. He draws a handkerchief - a dry one, new, and Ben has acquired a new type of failure, where he dirties Washington’s clothes - across Ben’s face in a businesslike manner, gathering his tears, and then he presses a finger to Ben’s mouth, before it can spill more apologies. “Now. Sleep, Major. You are exhausted.” 

“Sir,” he murmurs, but Washington’s hand is still above his mouth. 

“We will discuss your desires tomorrow. They shall be difficult to manage, I suspect, with your injury, but I know something of improvisation.” 

“ _Sir_ ,” Ben gasps, because he must be drunk, or unconscious, or dreaming, or deluded, or being entrapped, or--- 

“Enough,” Washington says, and Ben obeys, because his subconscious demands he obey. Washington’s hand is warm on his bare stomach, and it creeps down until one broad thumb is rubbing the line of his hipbone through his breeches. It cannot be true. This is a trick. This is a step to humiliate him. “Go to sleep.” 

Washington’s hand strokes down his cheek with unfamiliar, too-kind tenderness. Washington’s hand strokes his hair. Ben forces his eyes to open, because the dream is too torturous, and too wonderful. Washington’s eyes are on him. He seems very real.

“I am very real,” Washington promises, and Ben chokes back his laugh. He’s a disaster. For the hell of it, he wonders when he’ll be kissed, because he is teased by these dreams. Washington’s lips are soft, less demanding than Ben’s imagined, but warm and wet nonetheless. 

“Now, Major,” Washington says, again, and stands, “You stall stay there and sleep, and that is an order.” 

“Yes, sir,” Ben says, and when he closes his eyes, his body obeys. He can only obey Washington, even in these dreams where he is desired, and wanted, and satisfied. For just one moment, in between asleep and awake, he allows himself to believe that this is real, that Washington is right there, stroking his hair and his arm and telling him how charming and handsome he is. 

I hope to always be by your side, as much as you permit me, he thinks. 

As I hope you to be, replies a firm, alien voice in his head.


End file.
